Over the last several months, (perhaps longer) my prayer life has been a struggle for me. I haven’t had any problems sitting down to read God’s word, or even to meditate on it. But for some reason, when it comes to responding to God’s revelation or to the beauty and majesty revealed in my meditation, I stall. Perhaps that says more about my motivation in coming to the Word of God. Am I approaching this gift for the purpose of expanding my knowledge about God, and to check another passage off of my list, or am I approaching it for the purpose of beholding God and coming to know Him.
So last week, as I sat down to do my morning devotional at the beginning of the day, I felt a tug at my heart to do something that I hadn’t done in months. I felt the Lord inviting me to pray through a Psalm. It wasn’t a part of my plan, or a part of my normal routine, but I knew before opening my Bible that it was something that my soul needed. So I did, without any sense of which Psalm I would pray through, and start “scrolling,” if you will, until I landed on Psalm 23. Not surprisingly, it was exactly what I needed to hear that morning.
As many of you already know, Psalm 23 came up in Pastor Todd’s sermon a couple of weeks ago. It seems as if the truths in this short passage are something that I, and I think all of us, ought to pay attention to during this present season.
Like many of us, I have found that if there is one thing that this pandemic has forced me to do, it is to be still. Almost frustratingly still. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to see. It may not be a sustainable way of life, but perhaps it’s a grace that we have been given for a time. We live in a culture that values “busyness,” and it’s a value that has bled into the church and infiltrated our own value system. It’s a point that has been made by many before me, so I won’t belabor it now, but it’s a valid point. The truth is that God did not save us so that we could be busy. He saved us so that we could rest. So that we could be still, and know that He is God.
And if we weren’t going to obey His command on our own, maybe, by His grace, He forced us to obey it. He made us lie down in the green grass.
Why? So that our souls could be restored. It’s in the stillness, the quiet of a green pasture by a still, gleaming lake that we enter into a space where God’s grace binds the wounds of our hearts and restores to our weary souls the strength and fullness that has been drained away by our “busyness.” It’s what we need, and perhaps one of His purposes in this whole pandemic is to lovingly ensure that we get the soul-care that we can’t go without.
“Yes,” one may object, “but what about the economy? What about my need for social interaction? What about X, Y, or Z?”
I shall not want.
Let those words wash over you. You shall not want. Why? Because the Lord your Shepherd will provide for your every need. That is not to diminish the significant trials of this present season. Lost jobs, greater struggles with depression, or COVID-19. These are real and terrible trials, but in this midst of these trials, this truth remains; Though you may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, in the shadow of economic collapse and an increasingly fragile state of mental and physical health, the Lord is with you. You shall not want. All you need, He will provide. Perhaps this is a truth that we would not otherwise believe, if not for these present trials.
We don’t need to be busy, we can rest. I can’t speak for the Lord as to what he is doing during this unprecedented time, but perhaps He wishes to teach us this lesson. That no matter how long this lasts, He will provide for you. He will protect you. You are commanded to be still, and let your soul be restored by the grace that is at work when we aren’t. I’d invite you to pray through this Psalm, as I did, and praise God for these glorious truths, repent of your disobedience to sit in the green grass, and ask for the grace to do so and to believe what He has promised you. My hope for me, and for you, is that when this is all over, we would be more obedient to this command.